A conventional home cooking appliance, such as a Free Standing Range (FSR), includes a housing having a cooking compartment, such as a baking oven, convection oven, steam oven, warming drawer, etc., and a cooking surface formed, for example, by cooking grates disposed over gas burners on top of the housing. A conventional range (e.g., slide-in, free standing, etc.) is installed in a cooking area of a home kitchen with a rear wall of the appliance facing a back wall of the kitchen. The appliance typically is disposed between counters with floor cabinets below the counters. The kitchen may include wall cabinets mounted on the back wall of the kitchen either over the cooking surface of the range or over the adjacent floor cabinets, and/or another appliance or component, such as an over-the-range (OTR) microwave oven or an OTR convection microwave oven over the cooking surface.
Industry standards and regulations commonly dictate acceptable temperatures of the combustible back wall behind the appliance, acceptable temperatures of cabinets or components over the range or adjacent to the range, as well as acceptable door and other surface temperatures for the appliance, during high temperature events, such as during a normal baking and/or self-cleaning cycle of the oven while all burners on the cooktop are on a highest heat setting. The appliance must be able to exhaust cooling air and flue gases from the cooking compartment to maintain acceptable door temperatures of the appliance, acceptable surface temperatures of the appliance, acceptable temperatures of a combustible back wall behind the appliance, and acceptable temperatures of cabinets or components over the range or adjacent to the range.
Conventional appliances include various structures and techniques designed to manage and dissipate the hot air being exhausted from the appliance while complying with industry standards and regulations. In order to provide enough air flow through the appliance to maintain acceptable surface temperatures and oven door temperatures and to protect components in and around the appliance, many conventional appliances use costly designs and door construction that increase the air flow through the door and the housing, and/or use greater air flow and louder fans. Additionally, conventional home cooking appliances typically require a rear wall of the appliance to be spaced from the combustible back wall of the home kitchen by a certain minimal amount of clearance in order to manage and dissipate hot air from the appliance in order to improve compliance with the industry standards and regulations.
For example, a conventional Free Standing Range (FSR) may be provided with a rear vent trim kit or assembly, which adapts the FSR for the environment in which the FSR is placed. The FSR may include an “island” trim kit which adapts the FSR for installation in an island location, or a “low back” trim kit which adapts the FSR for placement with a rear wall of the appliance adjacent to a back wall of a home kitchen. A low back trim kit may be arranged to space the FSR away from the back wall so that air is permitted to circulate between the back wall to keep the back wall cooler than the FSR and also to provide a space into which exhaust gases and/or cooling ventilation from the FSR may be vented upward from the appliance. The FSR can include one or more ventilation fan outlets from which the FSR exhausts cooling air. The temperature differences in the air in the space protected by the conventional low back trim kit enables a convection of air to be established in a vertical direction from the fan outlets upward into the low back trim kit and the air is guided out a vent trim opening in an upper surface of the rear vent trim kit.